Back when I had a cable box (with DVR), I was surprised to find out that hitting the off button had exactly no effect on the power consumption. I realize that it would need to draw some power during standby, or at least when recording a show, but it seems like they should be able to idle something in there when I'm not using it! And of course, it would take forever to boot up if it was actually unplugged.

It's good to hear that some groups are concerned about power usage since it seems like the makers of these boxes really don't care.

EDIT: I'm really enjoying the articles about energy here on Ars, especially those about consumer electronics. I would love to see a feature story comparing the energy usage of all of the devices that people use these days, or about the energy used to run the cloud/internet. In particular, I was amazed to find out just how much energy is used for wireless communications (especially 4G data).

Okay, so new STPs will be power-efficient. How is that going to save power being used by the 100-odd million STPs currently in homes? Are telcos/cablecos/satcos suddenly going to start shipping these newer units to existing customers? Or, are they expecting people to know about the program and request a replacement? Or are they only going to get upgraded through attrition?

I love how they make these grand claims of "a billion dollars in savings annually" as if every single box will be magically replaced overnight.

Call me a cynic, but I'll wait until 2017 to see the actual savings numbers. I doubt they'll even be at the 100 million dollar / year mark by then.

I'm all for saving resources of course, but while they are at it can they design a STB that functions with even a modicum of speed?

Not only do the STBs take forever to boot up, but I have not used any STB connected to any digital service that did not respond painfully slow to button presses, channel changes and while otherwise trying to navigate or use the device.

My grandmother recently upgraded to digital service at the behest of the cable company (sending her postcards saying her analog service will be terminated by xx/xx/2014) and she has had nothing but problems from what was previously a fine service. The box misses her inputs all the time and she is not quick enough with technology to compensate, and sometimes the box accepts her channel input before she is even done pressing keys.

So I just hope this newfound set of standards doesn't simply result in a crappier, less useable experience than what they already charge egregious amounts of money for.

If they could charge the customer extra for it and it was a government mandate. They'd be all over it.

It already is. http://hometheaterreview.com/fcc-rules- ... cable-box/I'd bet allowing TV's to use their built in tuners instead of requiring a separate set top box to view cable would save even more power, but then the cable companies wouldn't have as much control over your viewing then.

I got rid of cable when my provider went digital. OTA and internet now.

What was pretty efficient was the already paid for 3 QAM tuners I had in my PC that went to sleep and woke up for recordings. Then Comcast decided to encrypt their signal and I had to spend $200 on a cablecard-ready infiniTV to keep using my setup (or deal with a whole mess of set top boxes and IR blasters.... no thank you).

Hmmm.....When the sat, telco, and cable companies get together on something, it's not just to save the consumer on their electric bill. Can't wait to find out what's in the fine print.

It is my understanding that Charter Cable was waiting for this standard to be settled before going all digital. This means us Charter customers will need a STB on each TV we watch TV on, something that has already happened on some other cable systems.

What was pretty efficient was the already paid for 3 QAM tuners I had in my PC that went to sleep and woke up for recordings. Then Comcast decided to encrypt their signal and I had to spend $200 on a cablecard-ready infiniTV to keep using my setup (or deal with a whole mess of set top boxes and IR blasters.... no thank you).

I'm pretty happy with my homerun prime setup. Having said that, I'm cutting cable now that Netflix and blu ray are working on the wmc PC. Twc hasn't been bad but the monthly bill sucks.

edit: any reason why mtorola doesn't stick a blu ray drive in a set top box? If I could go to one box I'd have never bothered building a wmc PC that now drives the media for the house.

I think an awful lot efficencies could be dramatically improved via industry standards. I am not sure how to make them happen but the numbers in this article do not surprise me at all. In my world (pharmaceuticals) a huge (reduction in)* amount of time and effort and uncounted deaths could be accomplished via industry standards for size shape and color of a given generic drug product.

I think an awful lot efficencies could be dramatically improved via industry standards. I am not sure how to make them happen but the numbers in this article do not surprise me at all. In my world (pharmaceuticals) a huge amount of time and effort and uncounted deaths could be accomplished via industry standards for size shape and color of a given generic drug product.

I recently returned my working set-top box to TWC because it generated so much heat, took so long to boot, and raised my monthly electric bill about $10. They gave me a newer model which improved on all three areas, but it still takes longer to boot than my 2001 iMac. Oh, the reason I know about the boot times is because I unpower it at night to save on power usage. These boxes are power hogs. I'd pay for a real efficient unit if it was available and approved by TWC as tuning this thing on and off sucks considering the boot time.

I think an awful lot efficencies could be dramatically improved via industry standards. I am not sure how to make them happen but the numbers in this article do not surprise me at all. In my world (pharmaceuticals) a huge amount of time and effort and uncounted deaths could be accomplished via industry standards for size shape and color of a given generic drug product.

Surely you mean uncounted deaths could be avoided...

Yeah that is what I meant. I should proofread. I left out the "reduction in" between huge and amount. I think way faster than I can type.

How about we save more energy by not encrypting QAM, eliminating the stupid set top box. Oh I'm sure the cable companies are only doing it to stop all the thiefs that have caused their service rates to increase for the consumer, and not because they want to get an extra $10 - $15 per tv per month...

Good! I like my Dish Hopper well enough, but the power draw is the same whether it's on or "off" (20-ish Watts). Worse still, when it shuts "off" due to inactivity, it outputs a screen saver, so my TV won't turn itself off.

We've invested in a bunch of surge strips. The TV, Blu-Ray player, and Roku are on one surge strip (which gets turned off at bed time and turned back on when we get home from work), and my Hopper on another (so that it, and only it, is left on overnight if we want our Joey in the next room to function).

The FreeSAT box is about 5 years old, and when in standby it uses 0.5W. The YouView box is brand new, and despite running off a wallwart, and having a 2.5" HDD compared to the 3.5" unit in the FreeSAT, it uses 7W on standby. It can be configured to go down to ~1W, but it takes a good 3 minutes to boot up then.

Hmmm.....When the sat, telco, and cable companies get together on something, it's not just to save the consumer on their electric bill. Can't wait to find out what's in the fine print.

Well, considering many of the set top boxes in use are more than 10 years old, I'll bet it has something to do with paying operators to take them out of service. Right now there's no incentive for operators to get rid of them because they are paid for and still working. Sure some people complain about the lousy UI, but the vast majority of customers continue to use them anyway. Anyone out there still using a 10 year old cell phone? Even my parents, who just last year upgraded their tube TV to an LCD, have upgraded phones more often than set top boxes.

And FWIW, $1.50 a month over 10 years is $180. Nothing to sneeze at when you consider interest on a savings account with a $1000 balance over that same time is a whopping $1.00 (at today's rates of 0.01%)

Back when the cable companies were petitioning the FCC to let them encrypt basic cable and the OTA re-broadcasts, I did a back of the envelope calculation to see how much power all of these additional set-top boxes were going to use. Then, I sent the information to Feinstein and a CA Representative in the Bay Area that was (is?) on the committee that oversees this stuff.

Feinstein opted to not reply. The US Rep sent a reply that is best summed up as 'I wasn't a constituent, so go away.'

The additional power use came out to 700MW or so. So, the 900MW in savings is really 200MW.

And FWIW, $1.50 a month over 10 years is $180. Nothing to sneeze at when you consider interest on a savings account with a $1000 balance over that same time is a whopping $1.00 (at today's rates of 0.01%)

why can't my new TV work without a set-top box (for cable)? why do i need this extra piece of hardware and yet another remote?

Or, to look at it a different way, why do all TVs still ship with tuners built-in, instead of being just dumb monitors with lots of inputs? Afterall, you can't watch TV via the build-in tuner, you need the external STB.

The problen with those power strips is they do not allow "shutdows". they do a "Yank power off the devices" which could be bad for say a DVR with a HDD in it.

Even for desktops, if printer's power is yanked.. it could mess it Up .

I've got three of the smart power strips at home, two on computers, one on the entertainment center. The smart power strips have one 'controlling' outlet (switches others), plus some always on outlets and some switched outlets. For both computers, the controlling outlet is the computer, while the switched outlets are things like monitor(s), external speakers, scanner, etc. If any of those suddenly lose power because I suspended/powered off my computer, no important state is lost. The router is on the 'always on' outlet, because we need Wifi on even when the computer nearby is off.

Same with the entertainment center -- the TV is on the controlling outlet, and things like the powered rabbit ears, subwoofer, and older game consoles (e.g. PS2, Saturn, Wii) are on switched outlets. The DVR could go on the "always on" outlet if you thought hard poweroffs would hurt it -- or needed to record something in the middle of the night. Generally, I've found that there are enough "helper" devices consuming power (proven with a Kill-A-Watt meter, now available at many public libraries too) that an auto-switch has justified its cost very quickly. Plus, it just works.